Appeals Court Blocks DC’s Concealed-Carry Law Based on Second Amendment

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court dismantled the restrictive District of Columbia gun-control measure requiring gun owners to prove they need a concealed carry permit!

Based on the fact that currently, D.C. requires citizens to show “good reason” in order to obtain a concealed carry permit, the U.S. Court of Appeals has blocked the regulation, saying it restricts an enumerated right.

The 2-1 decision is a huge win for not only D.C. residents, but for the Second Amendment itself – with the court essentially calling these regulations infringements on the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms!

Residents who want a permit to carry a concealed firearm in D.C. must now show that they have “good reason to fear injury” or a “proper reason,” such as transporting valuables. The regulations specify that living or working “in a high crime area shall not by itself” qualify as a good reason to carry.

“The good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on most D.C. residents’ right to carry a gun in the face of ordinary self-defense needs,” Judge Thomas B. Griffith wrote in his decision. “Bans on the ability of most citizens to exercise an enumerated right would have to flunk any judicial test.”

“The point of the Amendment isn’t to ensure that some guns would find their way into D.C., but that guns would be available to each responsible citizen as a rule,” Griffith wrote.

“If D.C. were like the 42 right-to-carry states, they would have about 48,000 permits,” said John Lott, who called Tuesday’s decision ‘huge’. “Right now D.C. prevents the most vulnerable people, particularly poor blacks who live in high crime areas of D.C., from having any hope of getting a permit for protection.”

“The Second Amendment protects the fundamental, individual right of Americans to not only keep arms but also to bear arms. D.C. residents have suffered under a near total ban on their right to carry a firearm for self-defense,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. “Today’s ruling is an important step toward protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”